H.  Burr 

O 

and  Sb&kspere 


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Latest  Date  stamped  below. 


University  of  Illinois  Library 


gjatau  and  j^hakspm 


F5  R O O R 


THAT 

WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 


yj/*  I'&i'l’  • 


COULD  NOT  WRITE. 


BV 

WM.  HENRY  BURR, 


WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 
JANUARY  22,  1 886. 


/ 


k 


PREFACE 


A 


FROM  A BUST. 


^isootmi  jgt.  MXutws. 


#B2>f 


PROOF 

THAT 

SHAKSPERE  COULD  NOT  WRITE. 

No  handwriting  of  Shakspere  has  ever  been  dis- 
covered except  five  autographs.  In  March  1613,  when 
he  was  nearly  49  years  old,  he  signed  his  name  to  a 
mortgage,  and  again  to  a deed  relative  to  the  same 
transaction.  Three  years  later  he  subscribed  his  name 
to  three  briefs  or  sheets  of  his  will.  The  five  fac- 
similes are  here  reproduced : 


Y&v i<~ 


They  are  all  such  signatures  as  an  iOiterate  person, 
unaccustomed  to  write,  would  be  likely  to  scrawl • and 


PROOF  THAT  6HARSFFRS' 


they  are  so  different  that  an  acquaintance  with  one  is 
little  help  to  the  recognition  of  another. 

In  the  first  signature  he  writes  Wm.  for  William. 

The  second  and  third  autographs  have  William 
written  above  Shakspere  Who  but  an  illiterate  per- 
son would  sign  his  name  thus  f 

In  the  last  two  signatures  (being  told  perhaps  that 
his  name  ought  to  be  written  on  one  line)  he  puts 
William  before  Shakspere ; but  the  fourth  William 
reads  Willin. 

See  now  how  differently  each  letter  is  formed  in  the 
name  Shakspere,  beginning  with  the  initial : 

S’  3 iPP  £p 

Did  anybody  ever  write  the  first  letter  of  his  name 
so  differently?  After  four  attempts  to  form  a capital 
S he  succeeds  tolerably  well  the  fifth  time.  The  second 
S.  though  of  singular  shape,  appears  to  have  been  a 
customary  one  as  early  as  1598.  (See  examples  of  that 
year  below  ) Shakspere’s  first  attempt  to  form  the 
crooked  letter  is  a failure,  but  the  second  passably 
good.  So  again  in  1G16,  when  he  has  a different  form 
to  copy,  his  first  attempt  is  futile,  the  second  is  passable, 
find  the  third  quite  successful. 

But  in  attempting  the  next  letter  he  makes  it  worse 
©very  time : 

* d l Z & 

With  the  letter  a he  is  more  success  *u!,  ma,  ng  it 
legible  three  times  out  of  five : 

a <£* 


COULD  NOT 


But  the  attempt  to  form  a k is  a signal  failure  r 

/ e t (r  t 

With  the  long  s he  succeeds  best  the  first  time,  and 
nvorst  the  second  and  third 

■f  j i fj 

The  letter  p is  legible  the  first  time,  but  grows  worse 
©,nd  worse  to  the  last : 

* p P f V 

' It  seems  as  if  in  the  first  attempt  to  sign  his  name  in 
1613  he  thought  it  was  complete  when  he  made  it  end 
•with  s p e ; but  being  reminded  that  it  lacked  a letter 
or  two  he  undertook  to  add  one  by  putting  an  a over 
the  e thus : 

The  next  time,  which  was  probably  the  same  day, 
he  seems  to  have  written  his  name  Shakspei*,  though 
•the  terminal  letters  are  uncertain  : 

35 

The  third  time  he  gets  it  mpre  like  Shakspoze : 

, SIS' 

* The  deed  to  Shakspere  and  two  other  trustees  is  dated  March 
10  and  signed  Henry  Walker.  The  mortgage  from  Shakspere 
and  the  other  trustees  is  dated  March  11.  But  for  some  un- 
accountable reason  a duplicate  verbatim  copy  of  the  deed  from 
Henry  Walker  is  signed  by  William  Shakspere.  This  duplicate 
is  in  the  Library  of  the  city  of  London  ; the  mortgage  is  in  the 
British  Museum.  The  duplicate  deed  we  suspect  wqa  signed 
after  the  mortgage.  Hence  the  improvement  in  the  autograph  ; 
it  was  probably  Shakspere’s  second  attempt  to  write.  Compare 
it  with  the  third. 


PROOF  THAT  SHAKSPERE 


The  fourth  time  he  seems  to  have  tried  to  disguise 
the  termination  with  awkward  flourishes,  making  the 
letters  totally  illegible  ? 


Finally,  he  omits  the  flourishes  and  comes  nearer 
legibility,  but  still  it  is  impossible  to  tell  whether  he 
meant  to  write  ear,  ere,  or  eare : 


And  now  let  the  reader  mark,  that  notwithstanding 
the  orthodox  spelling  of  the  name  from  1593  to  1616, 
and  indeed  up  to  the  present  time,  was  and  is  Shake- 
speare, there  is  no  e in  the  first  syllable  and  no  a in 
the  last,  although  some  have  imagined  the  letter  a to 
exist  in  the  last  part  of  the  final  autograph. 

We  have  said  that  these  signatures  are  all  that 
Shakspere  is  known  to  have  written  ; we  ought  to  add 
that  he  prefixed  to  the  last  one  the  following  scrawl: 


For  a long  time  we  puzzled  over  this.  Could  it  be 
an  attempt  to  write  “ 25th  of  March,”  the  day  of  the 
execution  of  the  will?  At  last  we  read  the  following  in 
Hallowell-Phillipps’s  Shakspere : 

“ It  may  be  observed  that  the  words  By  me,  which,  the  auto- 
graph excepted,  are  the  only  ones  in  the  poet’s  handwriting 
known  to  exist,  appear  to  have  been  penned  with  ordinary 
firmness.” 

Presuming  that  the  signatures  were  made  in  a sick 
bed,  the  author  concedes  that  the  words  “ By  me  ” were 
penned  with  ordinary  firmness.  Very  good;  but  could 
not  almost  any  five-year-old  boy  do  as  w^U  tlje  §rs£ 

to®  • 


COULD  NOT  WRITE. 


In  1775  certain  papers  and  legal  instruments  were 
published,  attributed  to  Shakspere,  Queen  Elizabeth, 
and  Southampton.  In  1796  Edmund  Malone  proved 
them  to  be  forgeries  Here  is  one  of  the  forged  auto- 
graphs of  Shakspere : 


This  is  superior  to  any  of  the  genuine  ones,  which  in 
some  degree  it  resembles.  Tlje  letter  a is  pretty  clearly 
written  in  the  last  syllable,  as  if  the  forger  meant  to 
'establish  the  proper  spelling  of  that  part  of  the  name. 
Malone,  who  at  first  pronounced  the  genuine  orthogra- 
phy to  be  Shakspeare,  subsequently  declared  Shakspere 
to  be  the  poet’s  own  mode  of  spelling  his  name  beyond 
all  doubt.  But  others  do  not  accede  to  this  decision, 
because  they  think  there  is  an  « in  the  last  of  the  five 
genuine  signatures. 

The  solution  of  the  whole  mystery  is  in  the  fact  that 
Shakspere  was  unable  to  write  or  even  to  spell  his  own 
name. 

In  1598  Richard  Quiney  addressed  a letter  to  him, 
asking  for  a loan  of  £30,  and  the  name  was  written 
Shackesper  : 


In  the  same  year  arnoDg  thirteen  names  of  holders  of 
corn  in  Stratford  the  last  but  one  is  Shakesper : 


NOTE. 

The  foregoing  pages  are  copied  by  permission  from 
a very  interesting  pamphlet  published  by  W.  H.  Burr, 
of  Washington,  D.  C.,  under  the  title  “ Shakespeare  Could 
Not  Write.”  The  book  contains  a further  discussion  of 
Shakespeare’s  signatures,  proving  conclusively  the  state- 
ment made  in  the  title.  It  also  contains  the 

"SONNETS  WRITTEN  BT  BACON  TO  ESSEX,"  m 

'‘BACON  IDENTIFIED  AS  THE  CONCEALED  POET  IGNOTO. 

as  well  as  other  interesting  matter.  Bound  in  paper 
covers— price  25  cents,  mailed  on  receipt  of  price. 


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CIPHER  STORY 

DISCOVERED  AND  DECIPHERED  BY 

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